Speed networking with the Hungerford Chamber of Commerce
Speed networking, much like speed dating I am assured, requires you to make a lasting impression in just a few moments! Last night Hungerford Chamber of Commerce hosted such a fun event at the Herongate Leisure Centre with over 30 West Berkshire businesses attending, many from Hungerford itself.
No stranger to networking, Morgan PR spotted familiar faces and a host of new ones in the room and while by any measure it was a little chaotic at moments, it great fun nevertheless and I was lucky to meet a host of interesting people.
In an interesting twist we were asked to do three good deeds after the event to help others in the room. Well, I have already done mine! However in a bigger gesture by blogging about last night I can help promote everyone I talked to! I have mentioned everyone I met and chatted to below and I have linked to their websites that I had been given detail of. Those links will boost the standing of the websites on search engines like Google.
Combining HR Consultancy with Life Coaching was Lynsey Masilamani, who is based in Hungerford. She works with small to medium sized firms offering not only the HR advice that is essential to avoid coming unstuck with employee problems. She also offers to help with Life Coaching.
Lynsey is also one of the host of practitioners who use the thiving Gaia Wellbeing in The Courtyard off Hungerford High Street as a base and its founder Wendy Byrne was another business at this event. Colleagues within Morgan PR had chatted to Wendy before, but it was the first time I had met her and it was great to see the passion I have heard so much about. As well as being a shop, Gaia Wellbeing is an independent company, supporting local self-employed practitioners and therapists to deliver complementary and alternative natural therapies and treatments. Worth popping in on a Saturday when there are usually free taster treatments on offer!
Therapy was still in order when I met Janet Gray from Gray's Therapies. She offers injury treatment and stress relief and was a pains to point out (forgive that pun please!) how her injury treatment has a tender touch that many do no expect, indeed some people avoid getting treatment for injuries because they fear it will be painful. So if you a nursing an injury, or equally stressing over injured pride, Grays Therapies can help. Quick off the mark after our chat about the importance of Twitter, Janet has already joined - follow @Janet_Gray on Twitter.
Bookkeeper Jennie Booth was wearing several hats but did a sterling job representing Proactive Books, and also Country Events corporate entertainment, which offers everything from off roading, quad biking and ATV rider training, through to clay shooting and archery. Ideal for team building and hen and stag parties alike.
I next met Sarah Koch, who together with husband Wilf was at the speed networking event promoting their holisitic business. Working as trainers, teachers and practitioners they offer Qigong, I Ching, massage, tarot, depression awareness, coaching, belief therapy, meditation and Aricular/hand therapy.
The speednetworking did put me face to face with someone I already know well! Peter Moorcroft is the bursar at the John O'Gaunt Community Technology College in Hungerford where I am the Vice Chairman of Governors. It was a good opportunity for him to fly the flag for the school and to find local potential suppliers for the school - assuming they are competitive enough of course!
When I met Hungerford Chamber of Commerce member George Styles of Styles Silver he generously invited me to spend the who of our time talking about Morgan PR. He was understandably sceptical about whether social media might attract the kind of customers who shop at Styles Silver, which offers antique and contemporary silver. When he heard that Twitter works for chef @DanielGalmiche at The Vineyard he acknowledged it might just work for his Hungerford store too.
Web developer John Laker of i3web explained how how he has recently launched his own web design business and already has a number of new sites under his belt and offers modular based content management systems. We work with a number of web developers and do try to match suppliers with clients, so we will be meeting up for a coffee soon. I will be doing the same Jim Parsons of Performance Web, with another web developer and also a software engineering company based in Hungerford.
It was good to see James Hearne from Apple Print again.The Newbury-based printers offer more than simply printing your order. Well, they will do that, but they can also help ensure that it achieves your objectives, and if you are not sure what those are... they can help then too!
There were several blasts from the past, including Chem Dry consultant Kevin Carver, who was actually at the speed networking event representing YellowTom, a marketing business run by his sun Stuar Carver. I first met Kevin around five years ago when I was hired to write a business feature on the company he has since sold. YellowTom seems like a good idea and checking out its feed on Twitter - @YTomNewbury it is brimming with local special offers for its clients.
During various breaks I was also able to have more in depth meetings with networkers, which included photographer Rachell Mullins of Rachel Mullins Photography. She takes wedding, portrait and baby portrait photographs and although a relatively new business, she already has a growing client book. She also revealed that her favourite photographic discipline is taking landscape pictures. Keen to learn more about how social media can leverage her business, we will be meeting up soon.
Videographer Ken Findlay was another face from my past. Now running video company Perceptions, which specialises in web video, we first met when I was a journalist almost 20 years ago when he was at Newbury Building Society and again when I worked as press officer for Thames Valley Police.
I also had the chance to chat to local entrepreneur Penny Locke, who is behind the popular Penny Post, a free weekly email newsletter that is sent out to a growing readership across West Berkshire, Wantage and Marlborough. Do visit www.pennypost.info to subscribe and to enquire about advertising information. Also, use it to submit information on events. It is a great source of community information.
In what seemed a very rushed 90 seconds each - the bell was ringing at odd intervals by now - I met successful business woman Sharon Lance from Blitz Cleaning, a Hungerford based cleaning firm that has been keeping homes sparkling in West Berkshire for the past eight years and has a team of 10 staff providing regular and one off cleans. The business has been built on word of mouth and customer referrals.
Also rushed was my meeting with a familiar face. Debbie Pope is a senior field sales representative with the Newbury Weekly News Group, one of Morgan PR's clients. Good to see the West Berkshire newspaper where I was once the chief reporter, out and about networking. I keep seeing different representatives at events we attend.
I first met the lovely Veronica Bailey from Farewise Travel when I wrote about the travel agency for a feature for the Newbury Business Today. It is the personal touch of Veronica and her team that set Farewise Travel apart. I did suggest she should be using social media to promote herself - I would be seriously inspired by tweets about some of the far flung corners Farewise sends people to.
After another break a group of us opted to make a smaller circle that allowed us to each give a more traditional one, or in some cases two or three, minute presentation. The circle varied in size and included tree surgeon Terence Booth, whose wife Jennie I had met earlier. He took strides across the floor to demonstrate the vast trunk of a Wellingtonia that his business Clean Cut Tree Fellers.
There was a brace of photographers in our circle, (should that be an exposure of photographers?), Forbes Stephenson was someone I had spoken to him before when he kindly volunteered to take photographs at John O'Gaunt Community Technology and he took some great shots that captured the passion of the students at the school. Also there was Mark Llewellyn of Mark Llewellyn Photography, a talented wedding photographer who had us in stitches when he explained about also photographing 'from bump to birth' - and ask if anyone there wanted to get pregnant!
Julie Stevens of Better Business Decisions is a familiar and friendly face on the networking circuit and she explained how they love helping small businesses sort out all their finance and accounting essentials. From bookkeeping and VAT returns to cash flow forecasts and business plans, and the all important end of year accounts, Better Business Decisions help small businesses across Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
Personally I think a tidy desk is the sign of a sick mind! Perhaps I should listen carefully to what Ros Kitson from Clear Desk Concepts whose wealth of experience in admin prompted her to set up a business that helps other companies find the best way to streamline their administrative functions. Which apparently does not have to mean a clear desk!
It was good to see Medical Photographer and Federation of Small Business recruiter Mike Samuels at the event. There were a host of businesses at the event who would benefit enormously from joining the FSB and I said so, declaring my interest as a voluntary committee member for the organisation in Reading and West Berkshire. Membership truly does have its benefits.
Clinical hypnotherapist Maddy Boardman who has a practice in Hungerford High Street, talked about the different conditions she can help clients address, ranging from phobias and unwanted habits through to depression and weight loss. Interestingly she used to be a counsellor, but sought out tools to help people after feeling that the counselling was unhelpful. She is also an NLP Practitioner.
Big thanks should go to Susan Hofgartner of Brilliant Bins for inviting us along - and for telling quite a few people there that they should speak to me! As a warm up act Susan was brilliant, much like her bins! Do check out the Brilliant Bins website where you can discover more about how Brilliant Bins are attractive, hygienic, disposable sanitary bins offering cost saving, flexible operation in compliance with legislation.
Finally another hefty portion of gratitude to the Hungerford Chamber of Commerce Chairman, Nigel Perrin of Three Marketeers, a full service marketing agency in Hungerford. Morgan PR hope to be working with the Three Marketeers in the coming months to support the Hungerford Food Festival, which attracted 1,000 people to a relatively small event last year, and will be back with a week of food related fun later this year.
It costs only £50 to join the Hungerford Chamber of Commerce, which seems worthwhile if events like this one are held on a regular basis.